News Room

Any day now, weary health care workers in medical facilities throughout Georgia will be lining up to receive the first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine that’s expected to put America on a path to normalcy. At the same time, residents and workers will be rolling up their sleeves in the state’s nursing homes, which have borne the brunt of Georgia’s deaths during the coronavirus pandemic but are far from alone in the suffering.

Vaccines like to be kept cool, none more so than the Pfizer candidate for Covid-19, which has to be deep-frozen. And that's going to be an issue for developing countries -- and for rural areas in the developed world. The "cold chain" is just one of the challenges in distributing vaccines worldwide. There are plenty of others: decisions about priority populations and databases to keep track of who's received what vaccine, where and when. Additionally, different vaccines may have more or less efficacy with different population groups; and governments will need PR campaigns to persuade people that vaccines are safe.

We are nine months into the covid-19 pandemic, with many succumbing to face covering and physical distancing fatigue, and pockets of pervasive skepticism about the virus threat and its risk. No one is happy, and everyone has someone to blame for their anger, grief and malcontent. The question people are asking is, when will the pandemic end so we can stop wearing face coverings and physically distance?

New research from a team of scientists at four leading universities has shed new light on the effectiveness of social advertising in specific product categories to learn which product categories tend to benefit more from social advertising, and which may not. “Social advertising is the placement of social cues or endorsements in ads shown to friends of those who have engaged with a brand or product,” said Huang. “Some examples include Facebook’s social advertising that places the images and names of Facebook friends who have liked a brand in their ads. 

A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee was meeting Thursday to discuss whether the agency should grant emergency use authorization for Pfizer Inc.'s coronavirus vaccine candidate. Later this month, members will meet on a vaccine from Moderna. In short, a vaccine is likely to be on its way to specific members of the public very soon.